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I can't tell very well . . . some type of meat."<br />
"Don't play games with me. You don't notice<br />
a bitter taste?<br />
"No, dona Elena, not at all. But if you wish, I<br />
will send it to be<br />
analyzed. I don't want you to worry. But until<br />
they give me the<br />
results, you have to eat."<br />
"Then get me a good cook."<br />
"Oh, but you already have the best one right<br />
here. I understand that<br />
your daughter Tita is an exceptional cook.<br />
Some day I'm going to come<br />
and ask you for her hand."<br />
"You know that she can't marry! she<br />
exclaimed, gripped by a violent<br />
agitation.<br />
John kept quiet. It didn't suit him to inflame<br />
Mama Elena.<br />
There was no point, for he had resolved to<br />
marry Tita with or without<br />
Mama Elena's permission. He knew too that<br />
Tita was no longer so<br />
concerned about that absurd destiny of hers<br />
and that as soon as she was<br />
eighteen years old, they would get married.<br />
He pronounced the visit<br />
over, ordering rest for Mama Elena, and<br />
promising to send her a new<br />
cook the next day. And so he did, but Mama<br />
Elena didn't even see fit<br />
to receive her. The doctor's remark about<br />
asking for Tita's hand had<br />
opened her eyes.<br />
Clearly a romance had sprung up between<br />
those two.<br />
For some time she had suspected that Tita<br />
would like to see her vanish<br />
from this earth so she would be free to wed,<br />
not just once but a<br />
thousand times if she felt like it.<br />
Mama Elena perceived this desire as a<br />
constant presence between them,<br />
in every little conversation, in every word, in<br />
every glance.<br />
But now there couldn't be the slightest doubt<br />
that Tita intended to<br />
poison her slowly in order to marry Dr.<br />
Brown. From that day on, she<br />
absolutely refused to eat anything that Tita<br />
had cooked. She ordered<br />
Chencha to take charge of the preparation of<br />
her meals.<br />
Chencha and no one else could serve it, and<br />
she had to taste the food<br />
in Mama Elena's presence before Mama<br />
Elena would make up her mind to<br />
eat it.<br />
This new arrangement didn't bother Tita, it<br />
was a relief to delegate to<br />
Chencha the painful duty of caring for her<br />
mother, so that she was free<br />
to start embroidering the bedsheets for her<br />
trousseau.<br />
She had decided to marry John as soon as<br />
her mother was better.<br />
The one who really suffered was Chencha.<br />
She was still recovering<br />
physically and mentally from the brutal attack<br />
that had been made on<br />
her. And although it might have seemed she<br />
would benefit from not<br />
having to do any other work than cooking<br />
and serving Mama Elena, it<br />
wasn't so. At first she received the news with<br />
pleasure, but once the<br />
shouts and reproaches started, she realized<br />
that you can't have a slice<br />
without paying for the loaf.
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